Elizabeth Montgomery: The Life Story Behind the Bewitched Star

Elizabeth Montgomery played a witch, and she did it with a twitch of her nose. As Samantha Stephens on Bewitched, she wiggled her nose, and magic happened. The show ran from 1964 to 1972, and it became one of the most loved sitcoms in television history. Children and adults watched it together, and the image of Samantha, with her blonde hair and her warm smile, became a part of American culture. She was a witch who wanted to live like an ordinary woman, and that simple idea made millions of people laugh and think at the same time.

But Montgomery was much more than Samantha. She was the daughter of a famous actor, a trained stage actress, and a serious dramatic performer who took on some of the hardest roles on television after Bewitched ended. She was also a passionate activist who spoke out for women’s rights, for people living with AIDS, and for peace. She lived a life that was both glamorous and serious, and she died too young, at the age of sixty-two, after a short illness that she kept private until the very end.

Her story is the story of a woman who grew up in Hollywood, who became a star on her own terms, and who used her fame to fight for the things she believed in. This is how Elizabeth Montgomery became Samantha, and how she became so much more than the character that made her famous.

A Hollywood Childhood

Elizabeth Montgomery was born on 15 April 1933 in Los Angeles, California. Her father was Robert Montgomery, one of the most famous actors in Hollywood, and her mother was Elizabeth Bryan Allen, a Broadway actress. She grew up in a world of film and theatre, where famous actors came to dinner, and where the talk was always about scripts, roles, and performances. It was an exciting place to grow up, but it was also a place where it was easy to feel small next to a famous parent.

As a child, Elizabeth showed a love of acting. She watched her father work, she listened to the stories of the theatre, and she dreamed of a career of her own. She was not a shy child. She was bright, funny, and full of energy, and she liked to perform. Her parents encouraged her, and they sent her to good schools, where she studied hard and took part in plays. She knew from a young age that she wanted to act, and she was willing to work for it.

When she was eighteen years old, she made her television debut on her father’s show, Robert Montgomery Presents, in 1951. It was a small step, but it was an important one. She was acting on television, in front of a real audience, and she was doing it on her own merit. She then studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, one of the best acting schools in the country, and she began to build her career in earnest. She did not want to be known only as Robert Montgomery’s daughter. She wanted to be known as Elizabeth Montgomery, an actress in her own right.

New York in the early 1950s was a hard place for a young actress, but Montgomery was determined. She took roles on the stage, she appeared on television, and she slowly built a reputation as a talented and serious performer. She had a natural warmth, a quick wit, and a way of making a character feel real, and directors began to notice her. She was on her way, and the best was yet to come.

Broadway and the Road to Samantha

Through the 1950s, Montgomery worked on Broadway and on television. She appeared in plays, she took guest roles on dramas and comedies, and she built a name for herself as a versatile actress. She won a Theatre World Award for her work on the stage, and she was respected by her fellow performers for her talent and her professionalism. She was not yet a star, but she was a working actress with a growing list of credits, and she was learning her craft one role at a time.

She also began a family during these years. She married the actor Gig Young in 1956, and the marriage lasted until 1963. It was a difficult time, and the marriage ended in divorce. Montgomery faced the end of her marriage with the same quiet strength she brought to her work, and she kept going. She took on new roles, she worked on the stage, and she stayed focused on her career. She knew that her work was the thing she could control, and she gave it everything she had.

In 1963, she married William Asher, a television director and producer, and the two of them began to work together on a new idea. Asher was developing a sitcom about a witch who marries an ordinary man and tries to live a normal life, and he wanted Montgomery to play the witch. Montgomery liked the idea, and she saw something special in the character. Samantha was not a wicked witch. She was a kind, funny, and loving woman who happened to have magic powers, and who wanted to use them as little as possible. Montgomery understood the character at once, and she agreed to play her.

The show was called Bewitched, and it began in 1964. Montgomery played Samantha Stephens, and Asher directed and produced it. The two of them worked closely together, and the show became a hit almost at once. It was a new kind of sitcom, funny and magical, and it made Montgomery a star. She had spent more than a decade working on stage and on television, and now she had found the role that would define her career.

Bewitched: Eight Years of Magic

Bewitched ran for eight seasons, from 1964 to 1972, and it produced 254 episodes. The show told the story of Samantha, a witch who marries Darrin Stephens, an advertising executive played by Dick York and later by Dick Sargent. Samantha tries to live like an ordinary housewife, but her mother Endora, played by Agnes Moorehead, keeps interfering, and her magic keeps causing trouble. The show was funny, charming, and full of fantasy, and it became one of the most popular sitcoms in America.

Montgomery played Samantha with a warmth and a humour that made the character unforgettable. She wiggled her nose to do magic, and that small gesture became famous around the world. She also played Serena, Samantha’s mischievous cousin, a brunette who caused trouble and who was the opposite of Samantha in every way. Playing two characters on the same show showed her range as an actress, and audiences loved both of them. Serena was fun, Samantha was kind, and Montgomery made each of them feel real.

The show was a huge success, and it made Montgomery one of the most famous actresses in America. She was nominated for Emmy Awards for her work, and she became a household name. Children dressed up as Samantha for Halloween, fans wrote her letters, and the show was sold to television stations around the world. It was a level of fame that she had never experienced before, and it changed her life.

But the show was also hard work. The hours were long, the special effects were demanding, and Montgomery was working while raising three children. She and Asher had three children together, William, Robert, and Rebecca, and she balanced her work on the show with being a mother. It was not easy, but she did it with the same determination she had shown throughout her career. When the show ended in 1972, she had created one of the most famous characters in television history, and she was ready for a new chapter in her life.

After Bewitched: Serious Roles and Real Courage

When Bewitched ended, Montgomery made a clear choice. She did not want to be Samantha forever. She wanted to play serious, dramatic roles, and she wanted to show the world that she was a serious actress. She took on television movies that dealt with hard and important subjects, and she gave performances that surprised people who had only known her as a funny witch. It was a brave choice, and it showed a different side of her talent.

In 1974, she starred in A Case of Rape, a television movie about a woman who is attacked and who faces a painful and unfair trial. The film was a serious and important work, and Montgomery’s performance was widely praised. She played the part with honesty and with pain, and she helped to start a public conversation about a subject that many people did not want to talk about. It was a far cry from Bewitched, and it proved that she was an actress of real depth.

The next year, in 1975, she played Lizzie Borden in The Legend of Lizzie Borden, a film about the famous murder case from the nineteenth century. The role was dark and difficult, and Montgomery played it with a quiet intensity that earned her an Emmy nomination. She continued to take on challenging roles through the late 1970s, including The Awakening Land in 1978, a miniseries about a family on the American frontier. Each role showed a new side of her talent, and each one proved that she was much more than Samantha.

Her marriage to William Asher ended in divorce in 1973, after ten years together. It was a hard time, and it came at the same moment that Bewitched was ending. Montgomery faced the end of her marriage and the end of her show at the same time, and she did it with strength and with grace. She kept working, she raised her children, and she built a new life for herself. She did not let the end of one chapter become the end of her story.

Activism and a Voice for Others

Montgomery was not only an actress. She was also a passionate activist who used her fame to speak out for the things she believed in. She supported women’s rights, she spoke out against war, and she worked for Amnesty International, the human rights organisation. She was one of the first famous actresses to speak openly about AIDS, at a time when many people were afraid to talk about it. She lent her voice to causes that mattered, and she did it with courage and with conviction.

Her activism was not a hobby. It was a central part of who she was. She believed that fame carried a duty, and that a person who had a public voice should use it to help others. She marched, she spoke, she raised money, and she stood up for people who had no voice of their own. Her friends often said that her work as an activist was as important to her as her work as an actress, and that she cared deeply about making the world a better place.

She also used her fame to support other actors and artists. She was known as a kind and generous person in the entertainment world, and she helped younger performers when she could. She did not seek attention for her activism. She did it because she believed in it, and she did it quietly, without asking for praise. That humility made her activism even more powerful, because it was clear that she was doing it for the right reasons.

In her later years, Montgomery continued to act, taking on roles that interested her and that challenged her. She appeared in television movies, she did voice work, and she stayed active in the causes she cared about. She married the actor Robert Foxworth in 1993, and the two of them shared a happy life together. She had found a new kind of peace, and she was still working, still speaking out, and still living life on her own terms.

A Sudden Goodbye at Sixty-Two

In the spring of 1995, Montgomery became ill. She had been working, and she had seemed well, but doctors found that she had colon cancer, and that it had spread. The illness moved quickly, and she died on 18 May 1995, at the age of sixty-two, only eight weeks after her diagnosis. Her death came as a shock to her family, her friends, and her fans, because she had kept her illness private and because she had seemed so full of life until the very end.

Tributes came from across the world of entertainment, and from the many people whose lives she had touched through her activism. Her co-stars remembered her as a warm and talented woman, her friends remembered her as a brave and generous person, and her fans remembered her as Samantha, the witch who had made them laugh for eight years. Her death was a loss to television, to the theatre, and to the many causes she had supported.

Montgomery’s legacy is a large one. She is remembered as Samantha, one of the most famous characters in television history, and she is remembered as a serious dramatic actress who took on some of the hardest roles on television. She is also remembered as an activist who used her fame to help others, and as a woman who lived her life with courage and with conviction. She died too young, but she left behind a body of work and a record of service that continues to inspire people today.

A Private Woman in a Public World

Elizabeth Montgomery was a famous woman who valued her privacy, and that tension shaped her life in interesting ways. She grew up in Hollywood, she became a star on television, and she was recognised everywhere she went. But she did not like to talk about herself, and she did not enjoy the attention that came with fame. She preferred to spend time with her family, with her friends, and with the causes she cared about, rather than with reporters and photographers. That privacy was a choice, and it was one she protected carefully.

Her children were the centre of her private life. She had three children with William Asher, William, Robert, and Rebecca, and she was a devoted mother to them. She tried to give them a normal childhood, even though their mother was one of the most famous women in America. She took them to school, she spent time with them at home, and she tried to keep their lives as ordinary as possible. It was not easy, but she worked at it, and her children have spoken about her with love and with respect, remembering her as a warm and caring mother.

Montgomery’s home life was also shaped by her love of animals. She was known for her love of dogs, and she often had pets around her. She was a kind and gentle person at home, very different from the glamorous star that audiences saw on television. Her friends often said that she was at her happiest when she was at home, with her family and her animals, away from the cameras and the crowds. That simple happiness mattered to her, and it gave her a balance that many famous people never find.

She was also a woman who kept her illness private until the very end. When she was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1995, she did not make a public announcement. She told her family and her close friends, and she spent her final weeks with them, in peace. That choice was in keeping with the way she had lived her whole life. She did not want her final days to be a public story. She wanted them to be private, and her family honoured that wish. It was a dignified choice, and it showed a strength of character that is rare in a world where famous people often share everything.

Her privacy also made her activism more powerful. When she spoke out for women’s rights, for people living with AIDS, and for human rights, people listened, because they knew she was not doing it for attention. She was doing it because she believed in it, and her quiet and serious manner made her words carry more weight. She was a private woman with a public voice, and she used that voice carefully, speaking only when she had something important to say. Montgomery’s co-stars remembered her as a generous and talented woman, and their tributes after her death showed how much she was loved. Dick York and Dick Sargent, who played her husband Darrin, both spoke warmly about working with her, and Agnes Moorehead, who played her mother Endora, was one of her closest friends on the show. The cast of Bewitched was a family, and Montgomery was at its centre, not because she was the star, but because she was kind, professional, and fun to work with. That reputation mattered to her, and it is one of the reasons the show worked so well for eight years.

Her work in television movies also left a mark on the medium. In the 1970s, the television movie was a new and important form, and Montgomery helped to show what it could do. She took on serious subjects, she played difficult characters, and she proved that a television movie could be as powerful as a film in a cinema. Other actresses followed her lead, and the television movie became a place where serious stories could be told. That is a part of her legacy that is easy to overlook, but it matters, because it changed what television could be. Montgomery’s legacy also includes the way she changed what a witch could be on television. Before Samantha, witches in stories were usually wicked, frightening, or silly. Samantha was kind, funny, and loving, and she wanted to live an ordinary life. That new picture of a witch, as a good person with magic powers, changed popular culture, and it opened the door for many of the friendly witches and magical characters that came after her. Montgomery played Samantha with a warmth that made the character feel human, and that warmth is why she is still loved today.

My Take:

When I think about Elizabeth Montgomery, I think first about the nose twitch, and then I think about how much more there was to her than that small gesture. Samantha was a wonderful character, funny and warm and magical, and Montgomery played her beautifully for eight years. But the woman behind Samantha was a serious actress, a brave activist, and a person who cared deeply about the world. I think that is the most important thing to understand about her. She was not just a sitcom star. She was a whole person, with a mind, a heart, and a voice, and she used all of them.

I admire the way she left Bewitched behind and chose serious roles. That takes courage. It would have been easy for her to keep playing Samantha, or to take on other light comedy roles that paid well and kept her famous. She chose a different path. She played a woman who had been attacked in A Case of Rape, and she played Lizzie Borden, a woman accused of murder. Those are hard, painful roles, and they ask an actress to go to dark places. Montgomery went there, and she did it well. I think that shows a real respect for acting as an art, not just as a job. She wanted to tell stories that mattered, and she was willing to take risks to tell them.

What I find most moving about her is her activism. She spoke out for women’s rights, for people living with AIDS, and for human rights, at a time when it was not fashionable or easy to do so. She did not do it for attention. She did it because she believed it was right. That kind of courage is rare, especially for a famous person, because speaking out can cost you work, it can cost you fans, and it can cost you friends. Montgomery spoke out anyway. I respect that deeply, and I think it is one of the best things about her. Fame is a tool, and she used it to help people who had no voice.

I also think about her childhood, growing up as the daughter of a famous actor, and I admire the way she built her own career. It would have been easy for her to live in her father’s shadow, or to use his name to get ahead. She did not. She studied, she worked on the stage, she took small roles, and she earned her place. She became a star on her own merit, and she did it with a character that she helped to create. That independence is worth admiring. She was her father’s daughter, and she was also her own person, and she found a way to be both.

There is a sadness in her story that I cannot ignore, which is how young she was when she died. Sixty-two is too young, and eight weeks from diagnosis to death is a shockingly short time. She had so much more to give, as an actress and as an activist, and her death cut that short. I wish she had lived longer, and I wish she had been given more years to work, to speak out, and to enjoy her life with her husband and her children. Her death is a reminder that life is fragile, and that even the most talented and beloved people can be taken too soon.

I also think about the way she kept her illness private, and I respect that choice. She did not want her final weeks to be a public story. She wanted to spend them with her family, in peace. That is a dignified choice, and it shows a strength of character. She had spent her whole life in public, on television and on stage, and in the end, she chose privacy. I think that is a right that every person deserves, and I am glad that her family honoured it.

What I take from Elizabeth Montgomery’s life is a clear lesson. Use your gifts, and use your voice. She used her talent to make people laugh as Samantha, she used it to make people think in her dramatic roles, and she used her voice to speak for people who needed help. She did all of it with warmth, with humour, and with courage. She was a witch on television, and she was a real and serious woman in life, and both parts of her matter. I am grateful for her work, and I hope that people remember her not only for the nose twitch, but for the brave and generous person she was.

I keep thinking about her work on Broadway, when she was a young actress winning a Theatre World Award and building a reputation as a serious performer. Those years are easy to forget when we think of Samantha, but they matter, because they are where she learned her craft. On Broadway, you perform in front of a live audience, with no second takes, and you must be fresh every night. Montgomery learned that discipline, and she carried it with her to television. She was always prepared, always professional, and always ready to work. That professionalism is one of the reasons she was respected by everyone she worked with.

I also think about the way she played Serena, Samantha’s mischievous cousin, and how it showed her range as an actress. Serena was the opposite of Samantha in every way. She was fun, she was trouble, and she did not care about the rules. Montgomery played both characters on the same show, and she made each of them feel real. That is a hard thing to do, to play two people who are so different, and to make the audience believe in both of them. It shows a talent that goes far beyond a nose twitch, and it is one of the reasons her performance is still admired today.

There is something else I admire, which is the way she used her fame to speak out for people living with AIDS, at a time when many people were afraid to talk about it. She was one of the first famous actresses to lend her voice to that cause, and she did it with courage and with conviction. She did not do it for attention. She did it because she believed it was right, and because she knew that her voice could help people who had no voice of their own. That is a brave and generous thing to do, and it is one of the best things about her.

I think about her three children, and about the love she had for them. She tried to give them a normal childhood, even though their mother was one of the most famous women in America, and she worked hard to protect their privacy. That is a difficult thing to do, and she did it with care. Her children have spoken about her with love, remembering a warm and caring mother who was there for them. That is a reminder that fame is not the most important thing in life. Family is, and Montgomery knew that.

What stays with me most is the sadness that she died so young, at sixty-two, with so much more to give. She had been a star, a dramatic actress, and an activist, and she still had years of work ahead of her. Her death is a reminder that life is fragile, and that we should value the people we love while we have them. I am grateful for her work, and I hope that people remember her not only as Samantha, but as the brave and generous woman she truly was.

I also think about the way she played Lizzie Borden, and how it showed a dark and difficult side of her talent. Lizzie was accused of murder, and the role asked Montgomery to play a woman who might have done a terrible thing. She played it with a quiet intensity that earned her an Emmy nomination, and she proved that she could handle the hardest roles on television. That is a brave choice for an actress who was known as a funny witch, and it shows a deep respect for acting as an art. She did not want to be safe. She wanted to be true, and she was.

There is one more thing I want to say, which is about her father, Robert Montgomery, and the way she honoured him while building a career of her own. She made her television debut on his show, and she learned from watching him work, but she did not live in his shadow. She earned her fame through her own talent, with a character she had helped to shape, and she did it on her own terms. That independence is worth admiring. She loved her father, and she was proud of him, and she was also a star in her own right, and she found a way to hold both of those truths together. That balance is hard to get right, and Montgomery got it right. It is a lesson for anyone who grows up in the shadow of a famous parent. You do not have to reject your family, and you do not have to disappear into their story. You can honour them and be yourself at the same time, and Montgomery proved that it can be done with grace. She showed that a famous woman can also be a serious, thoughtful, and generous one.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long did Bewitched run on television? Bewitched ran for eight seasons, from 1964 to 1972, with 254 episodes. Elizabeth Montgomery played Samantha Stephens, and she also played Samantha’s mischievous cousin Serena.

What dramatic roles did Elizabeth Montgomery play after Bewitched? She starred in A Case of Rape in 1974 and played Lizzie Borden in The Legend of Lizzie Borden in 1975, earning an Emmy nomination. She also starred in the miniseries The Awakening Land in 1978.

Who were Elizabeth Montgomery’s parents? Her father was the film star Robert Montgomery, and her mother was the Broadway actress Elizabeth Bryan Allen. She grew up in Hollywood and made her television debut on her father’s show in 1951.

What causes did Elizabeth Montgomery support? She was an activist for women’s rights, for people living with AIDS, and for human rights through Amnesty International. She also spoke out against war and used her fame to support causes she believed in.

How did Elizabeth Montgomery die? She died of colon cancer on 18 May 1995, at the age of sixty-two, only eight weeks after her diagnosis. She had kept her illness private from the public.

How many times was Elizabeth Montgomery married? She was married four times: to Frederic Gallatin Cammann, to the actor Gig Young, to the producer and director William Asher, with whom she had three children, and finally to the actor Robert Foxworth in 1993.